Monday, October 21, 1996
X-COUNTRY:
NCAAs may be a possibility for the unranked BruinsBy Mark J.
Dittmer
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
UCLA has not been to the cross-country national championships
for a while. Last year, prospects for the NCAAs looked so dim that
UCLA sent only one runner to the NCAA preview race.
This year, the Bruins sent their entire men’s and women’s teams.
After running the course on Saturday, both teams are now eyeing the
national championships as a possible goal. The Bruin men finished
11th out of 32 teams on Saturday, while the women finished 12th out
of 30.
Are those places good? They certainly are for the Bruin men. The
field of 32 teams included ten ranked in the top 25. Nine of those
10 finished ahead of unranked UCLA along with unranked Illinois,
who finished 10th.
The ranked team that the Bruins did beat was conference opponent
Arizona. The Wildcats were the third-best team in the conference
last year but had a disastrous race on Saturday.
"We’re real pleased," UCLA men’s head coach Bob Larsen said
after the meet. "The guys competed very well. We beat some teams
that had beaten us earlier in the year. Like Cal Poly Pomona, who
beat us at Stanford. And Wake Forest, who beat us pretty easily
early in the year (at Tennessee) but here they only beat us by 27
points."
As usual, UCLA was paced by Mebrahtom Keflezighi. Keflezighi
left the starting gun with an undefeated record on the season, but
crossed the finish line third. The first two runners both wore the
colors of 18th-ranked Nebraska. Cleophas Boor and Jonah Kiptarus,
both junior college transfers, finished one and two, and Keflezighi
crossed the line just a second behind Kiptarus.
"They (Boor, Kiptarus, and Keflezighi) were running way out in
front of everybody," Larsen said. "It was like a three-man race and
then the rest of the pack. Of course Meb would’ve liked to have
won, but he realized he had done real well."
Boor finished eight seconds ahead of Kiptarus, who beat
Keflezighi by one second. Greg Jimmerson of Stanford came in 25
seconds later.
UCLA was running their first race of the season with Devin
Elizondo, who had previously been academically ineligible. In
addition, Chris Lynch was running for the Bruins for the first time
since Sept. 7.
"I was real pleased with Devin, Matt (Olin), and Chris Lynch,"
Larsen said. "They all ran very strong. I was expecting them all to
come in somewhere between 100th and 150th, but they finished 98, 99
and 102."
This bodes well for UCLA because Elizondo and Lynch both
probably have improvements ahead of them. UCLA is already knocking
on the door of the top 25, finishing just 27 points behind No. 12
Wake Forest and 30 points behind No. 16 Michigan State. As Elizondo
gets more practice time and Lynch gets healthier, the Bruins could
find themselves in national championship contention.
Meanwhile, host Arizona’s men suffered a disastrous race,
although the disaster really came down to one performance: that of
Bob Keino. Keino finished 11th in the NCAA Championships last year
and had finished in the top five of every race the Wildcats had run
this year. On Saturday, Keino finished 146th. Had Keino finished
fourth (and he had beaten Jimmerson more than once last year),
Arizona would have finished 13th, instead of a dismal 20th.
But that still wouldn’t have been good enough to beat the
Bruins, and UCLA is now optimistically looking toward the Pac-10
Championships two weeks from now.
"We like our chances of getting into that top three (in the
conference) after the way we competed this weekend," Larsen said.
"We were in the top three a few times a few years ago, but it’s
been awhile."
* * *
UCLA’s women looked a lot like the men. They finished ahead of
one ranked opponent and behind two unranked opponents. Their
previously undefeated star suffered her first loss just as
Keflezighi suffered his, but she still helped the team
immensely.
But the Bruin women were supposed to contend for the
championship at the beginning of the year, and they were nationally
ranked as recently as three weeks ago. So banging on the door of
the top 25 isn’t good enough for them.
Meanwhile, freshman Kim Mortensen’s first loss came at the hands
of Arizona sophomore and high school rival Amy Skieresz. Mortensen
finished second overall, out of 205 runners. Githa Hampson finished
a strong 47th for UCLA, and junior Katerina Kechris was UCLA’s
third runner to cross the line at 70th overall.
Scott Quintard/ASUCLA Photography
Freshman star Kim MortensenScott Quintard/ASUCLA Photography
Mebrahtom Keflezighi